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NEGOTIATING FOR DEVELOPMENT HELP
Posted August 16, 2003
| SUMMARYA development editor is important in bringing a textbook to marklet. Ask for development help as part of your contract negotiation. If your publisher declines, ask what the sales projection will be and negotiate for development on the next edition if expectations are met. If development help is not forthcoming, negotiate for some consideration of your personal investment of time and resources for development. |
By Mary Ellen Lepionka
Atlantic Path Publishing
In textbook publishing, development is a complex recursive process in which authors and editors collaborate to bring a manuscript and all its ancillary material to market level and prepare it for publication. If you already have a completed manuscript in hand, you might wonder why your book needs development. As one author recalls, anonymously: |
"It was my magnum opus -- brilliant, classroom-tested, as near perfect as I could make it, the fruit of long years of painstaking study and splendid revelation and long nights at the computer. It was a labor of love and professional fulfillment in a publish or perish world. I had said exactly what I meant to say in exactly the way I wanted to say it. My colleagues in my department, my students, and my spouse all said that they liked it. As far as I was concerned, it was done. This was it, take it or leave it. Then I met my development editor."
This author learned that every writer needs an editor and that most textbooks need development to succeed in a big way. With development, a textbook can double its sales in its first two editions, as this author's did.
Ideally, development is done up front before manuscript even exists, and certainly before you have polished a presumed final draft. As with technological applications, retrofitting a manuscript to match a later development plan can be a nightmare for all involved. Thus, plan early and well, and, if possible, get development help.
Development tasks include analyzing your competition and reviewer feedback, deciding on organization and content, creating a system of headings and subheadings, planning the chapter apparatus and pedagogy, designing figures and tables, writing photo specs and captions, articulating a marketing approach, planning a supplement package, and preparing your manuscript for release to production.
Ask your publisher or sponsoring editor if you will have the help of a development editor (DE). It would be in your interests to ask for development help as part of your contract negotiation. If your publisher declines to invest in development, ask what the sales projection will be and negotiate for development on the next edition if expectations are met.
If your book is an untried first edition in an uncertain market, is already in its 10th edition with declining sales, or serves a small, specialized readership, investment in development might not be forthcoming. If, however, the sales projection is, say, 5,000 or more units in a new market or 10,000 or more units in an established market, some professional development help might be warranted. Note, however, that publishers vary in the cutoff figures they use to determine if a book can afford development, and only the larger commercial houses make this kind of investment.
Publishing houses also specify different levels of development consistent with their overall level of investment. Minor development might involve only a few days of developmental review by an editor who does not establish contact with you, while full development might involve having your project managed in every detail, your manuscript line-edited by the DE, or, rarely, the DE traveling to your campus to work with you. Thus, if your publisher is investing in development, ask what level of development is planned.
It is likely that you will need to assume some DE roles regardless. Unless your work is slated as a major-market two- or four-color introductory textbook, your chances of having development help actually are small. Development usually is reserved for products with high-volume sales projections and for promising new markets into which the company hopes to expand.
In addition, development is expensive. In some companies a portion of the staff development editor's annual salary is figured as part of the cost of a book, so only the books with the largest sales projections can afford a DE. The publisher might prorate the services of an inhouse or freelance DE at $200 to $400 per day, charged as part of the plant costs for your book.
If development help is not forthcoming, negotiate for some consideration of your personal investment of time and resources for development, and announce your intention to develop the book yourself.
My book, Writing and Developing Your College Textbook, book was written to aid and support author-directed textbook development.
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MARY
ELLEN
LEPIONKA
Lepionka, of Gloucester, Massachusetts, is the founder of Atlantic Path Publishing and author of its 2003 frontlist title, Writing and Developing Your College Textbook.
Forthcoming titles include her Writing and Developing College Textbook Supplements and Frank Silverman's Self-Publishing Textbooks and Instructional Materials.
E-mail: Mary Ellen Lepionka.
Telephone: (978) 283-1531
This article is excerpted from Chapter 4, "Development and Why Your Textbook Needs It" from Writing and Developing Your College Textbook by Mary Ellen Lepionka (ISBN: 0-9728164-0-2; Atlantic Path Publishing, 2003; all rights reserved). |
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